Hydrocarbon Encapsulating Polymers: A solution to oil spills?

Oil spills are one of the greatest marine environmental issues that have yet to be stopped. With the constant amount of oil transportations through shipment, these bodies of water would always be vulnerable to a possible oil spill if not carefully transported. Aside from spills in the water, there are also oil spills on land as automobiles run on gas and a lot of it actually somehow ends up on land rather than being in these machines. So what is a possible solution to improve these situations?

The company Vigilant Marine Systems, LLC has actually developed the OXP-151 Polymer which is an environmentally safe material that encapsulates petroleum and other hydrocarbon based products. The material allows the possibility of absorbing the hydrocarbon and then recovering it through processing. By applying a thin layer of powder, which is its natural form, the material is capable of absorbing hydrocarbon as it bonds together from a reaction of the OXP-151.

Below is an image of ½ gallon of gasoline absorbed by 150 grams of OXP-151

The material, however, creates a permanent bond with the hydrocarbon and thus begins a burning process with its low ash content (<0.6%). Many benefits include its cost effectiveness, environmentally safe, non-hazardous, non-toxic and its capability of being incinerated. The product could possibly be a great solution to oil spills or simply a way to clean our bodies of water when we are using it for transportation purposes. Since this is also a very buoyant material, anything that can be used for travelling on water could attach the material at its base to let the material perform as it sits in the water.